Plasma Assisted Combustion

Plasma often referred as the forth state of matter is essentially gas that consists of charged particles including electrons and positive and negative ions as well as neutral atoms and molecules. It is collectively quasi-neutral but electrically very different from dielectric neutral gases.

Plasma is practically generated with electric discharges and resistive heating occurs. Such heating increases the temperature which affects combustion characteristics. Also plasma is rich of reactive species that do not exist in neutral gas and introduces additional reaction path ways or dissociate large molecules including fuels.

Several kinds of plasma discharges were successfully applied to ignition of internal combustion engines and to stabilization of gas turbine combustors. Besides combustion enhancement plasma discharges were applied to reduction of harmful emissions like SOx, NOx and soots.

Research on plasma assisted combustion model and simulation code development based on OpenFOAM are on progress.

The schematic of major enhancement pathways of plasma assisted combustion from Ju, Y., & Sun, W. (2015). Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 48, 21-83.